


Broken

by lildarkone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Red Queen Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:31:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lildarkone/pseuds/lildarkone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For love, Red protected her queen, but at too high a cost.  Now Regina visits her lover, needing to see her as she struggles to fix what she broke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Red Queen Week's prompt ANGST. It was the first thing that popped into my head upon reading the prompt. If there are any mistakes they are all my own.

Regina stepped carefully through the dark underbrush, one hand reaching out to steady herself while the other was raise slightly to allow the small ball of flame to cast enough light to see by. It was near midnight, the forest around her still, but on the edge of her senses she knew creatures were stirring. Regina felt her heart racing, the back of her neck prickling as she made her way deeper into the forest. However it was not the normal nocturnal creatures that had her heart racing, it was another. One that was new to these darkened woods, an unnatural among the fantastical.

The thick trees finally broke and the woman stepped into a large clearing. Near the far edge a ramshackle shack stood on the edge of a small brook, looking destitute and out of place. It was towards this building that Regina moved, stopping once she got to the brook. With a wave of her hand the fireball was extinguished and she was bathed only in the light of the full moon hanging above.

“I know you’re there,” She called, her voice barely above a whisper, but it didn’t need to be. She knew the one she was looking for was close by. She could hear the heavy footfalls disturbing the underbrush, feel the faint vibrations in the earth beneath her feet. A hulking form materialized from the woods behind the shack. A skitter of fear ran down her spine and remorse closed her throat as she watched the massive animal, standing easily five feet at the shoulder, came to stand on the other side of the river, blazing amber eyes staring Regina down.

“Red,” She breathed, hands itching to reach out and reconnect, but the chasm was just too wide. She had seen the wolf once before, had been in awe of the power and sleek grace that had encompassed the beast. Then there had been a warmth to the amber gaze, now the gaze was as cold as stone. 

The dark form shifted and changed, shrinking until a woman stood before Regina, smaller but with the same aura of wildness and danger the beast had. “I told you not to come here, Regina,” The werewolf growled, turning quickly on her heel and striding towards the shack, scooping up a red slip of cloth that was folded on a bench just by the door.

“Red wait,” Regina crossed quickly through the water, sprays of icy water hitting her legs and arms. It was like small shards of ice, cutting against her flushed skin, but she felt it only vaguely. She had to get to Red, to somehow bridge the distance between them. “I was worried about you.” 

“As you can see I am perfectly fine, your majesty. No different the last time you sought me out, or the time before that. Now go,” The taller woman growled, the sound coming from deep within a pale chest as wolf-amber eyes stared the royal down. “I don’t want you to come back.”

Regina shook her head, hands clenched as anger mixed with the guilt and sorrow. “I will find a way to fix this,” She said, never stopping her forward momentum. She had to be closer, close like they had once been. She was never much one for hope, but she had to find a way to fix her mistake.

A snarl, animalistic and heart-wrenching in its intensity, ripped from ruby red lips as Red shot forward, grabbing a startled Regina in her grasp and whirling around to pin her to the cabin wall. Regina bit back a gasp of pain as her head and shoulders banged into the wood, but she didn’t, couldn’t, tear her eyes away from Red’s.

“I am a monster now, Regina. That will not change. I cannot be changed. You know the myth as well as I. I taught them to you after all. You decided to play bandit and I paid the price. There is no going back!” Red snarled, pelt sprouting below her belly and along her bare arms and legs. Her wolf was riding close to the surface, emotion and the high moon making her restless within its mental cage. “And you returning here, week after week only reminds me of that. So do not come back. If you ever loved me,” Red cut off, tears burning a pathway down her cheeks and over grief twisted lips. Her head dipped forward, for a single moment resting against Regina’s throat. Like the touch of flame to ice, Red’s body melted against Regina’s, seeking contact on its own volition despite her mind screaming for her to run. Her entire life had been a constant struggle to keep the wolf from winning and her only solace had been beneath the red cape or within Regina’s arms. But now neither was enough, both hurt in their inadequacy.

Regina wrapped her arms around the trembling form. Despite the impossible situation between them, or perhaps because of it, her mind seemed to try to memorize everything about this moment. The warm, almost hot flesh pressing like a puzzle piece against her own. For a single moment Regina wished her own clothes were gone, to feel the connection with her lover that she had not felt in quite a while. Not since that fortnight. “I do, Red. I love you.” It was her fault that her love was like this. Red had sacrificed her own humanity to save Regina and now both women bore the wounds of that fateful decision. Both caught within their own hells. Her hand brushed through wild brown curls before cupping the back of the trembling woman’s head. “I did not say that enough. I did not show it enough. But I want the chance to change that.”

“No,” Red snapped, springing back from Regina as if burned. “Once a werewolf has tasted human blood it will always crave it,” She recited the words that had been burned into her mind by her grandmother who always warned her to be careful. She had thought it a stupid superstition. How she wished she could still think that. “I killed Rumpelstiltskin’s men for you and it has made my wolf craven against its call.” Even now, covered with the cape and sated with the deer she had mauled now a candle mark prior, her wolf called for more. Called for the hot blood she could smell pumping within Regina’s body, for the soft flesh that- “No,” She yelled, turning away from Regina and the monstrous thoughts that were bubbling up. Her wolf snarled, banging against the iron bars of her cage, demanding freedom and satisfaction. “You have to leave. Now!” She snapped, feeling the wolf howling and snarling. “Go and do not ever come back. You’ve done enough.”

Regina watched Red disappear inside the shack, heard something heavy and hard slam into the door on the other side, obviously locking the other woman inside and Regina out. ‘Do not ever come back,’ The words seeped like poison within Regina’s mind stealing her strength until she her legs nearly buckled. What was she going to do? What could she do? Red had been right, blaming Regina for this since it had been Regina’s foolish pride that had angered Rumpelstiltskin and had him send men to kill the royal. But Red, loyal beloved Red, who until then had been so careful to only kill deer and game when wolf, had stopped them. She had killed them in her wolf form because there were too many to take on as human. Now Regina was going to find a way to fix them both, hoping there were enough pieces left over to put them back together.


End file.
